1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an apparatus for mixing together a plurality of flowable materials, such as a liquid with another liquid, a liquid with a gas, a liquid with a dry granular or powder material, a liquid with solids in a slurry or a suspension, or various combinations of these materials.
2. Background Art
Mixers can be generally classified as either a continuous type or a batch type. In a continuous mixer, a plurality of flowable materials, such as liquids, gases, powders, and the like are supplied at a particular flow rate into a mixing chamber and are mixed by their velocity and turbulence or by mechanical stirring, or both. Known continuous mixers do not always provide sufficient contact between the molecules of the materials to effect complete mixing. If the object of the mixing is a reaction, such as when a reagent is added to adjust the chemistry of acidic mine water, more reagent than is needed for the reaction is used to compensate for the inefficiency in mixing and to achieve as much contact by the reagent as possible. The inefficiency of the mixer results in extra cost from the use of excess reagent as well as the energy involved in operating the mechanical mixer.
In a batch type of mixer, two or more materials are placed in a container and mixed together by stirring, rotation, tumbling or the like. It is also common to mix oxygen with liquids, such as contaminated water, by either surface, turbine or bubble aerators in conjunction with large settling ponds. Such batch type mixers have several disadvantages. The mixing is rather slow since the materails are fed into the mixer, then mixed for a time period until the entire volume is mixed, and then removed from the mixing chamber. These mixers are also generally large, especially so with settling ponds, since an entire batch is treated at one time. Moreover, batch mixers are not generally efficient in operation.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a continuous type of mixer which efficiently and thoroughly mixes together a plurality of materials.
It is a further object to provide a mixer which is totally static in operation and includes no moving elements. Furthermore, such a device will require little maintenance or downtime and will be very simple of construction.
Moreover, it an object of the present invention to provide a mixer which is flexible in design, can accommodate a variety of specific needs, and can be used in a variety of system configurations.